Can America Be Redeemed?

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Eddie Glaude and Imani Perry consider the question through the work of James Baldwin and Richard Wright. Plus: How our country could enter a period of “post-traumatic growth.” The two professors of African-American Studies at Princeton talk with each other about the impact of James Baldwin and Richard Wright’s work — on their own intellectuality and creativity, and that of the Black American zeitgeist at large and the harrowing relevance of their work as it echoes into the issues of today. Later, a conversation with psychologist, minister and artist Dr. Thema Bryant-Davis as we prepare to navigate the traumas of this past year, and what it really takes to move forward individually, and as a whole. And we offer our annual reading of Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”, as performed by award-winning actor John Douglas Thompson. Companion listening for this episode: On This Occasion… (Series Collection)Some of our favorite shows come from holidays and commemorations that get us thinking about history -- and our places in it. Here’s a sampling. “The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the United States of Anxiety, a show about the unfinished business of our history and its
0:07.1	grip on our future.
0:08.1	Y'all know we ain't celebrating the 4th of July no more, right?
0:12.1	Independence Day. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the
0:16.4	history and heritage of the land that you live in. But you better believe that
0:21.6	what really made America great is the blood, sweating tears of my people.
0:27.0	We can swear to the freedom of all mankind and put me in chains.
0:32.0	We joined a long line of black thinkers who believed that to achieve freedom we first had to get out of Dodge.
0:38.0	Through storytelling and holding space for folks to talk about the wholeness of who they are, the good, the bad, the messy.
0:44.3	Sometimes you don't survive whole, you just survive in part.
0:48.8	It is about being as fearless as one came under completely impossible circumstances.
0:58.0	Welcome to the show. I'm Kay Wright.
1:00.0	It's Independence Day.
1:01.2	And if you've been listening to this show for a while, you know that we often spend our holidays just kind of musing on stuff.
1:10.0	I guess if I'm honest, this is a pretty musing kind of show on any week, but we really let our minds wander on holidays because why not?
1:18.8	There's supposed to be days of reflection, right? And actually if you want to hear some of our previous holiday
1:24.5	rambling you can go to our website at WNYC.org slash anxiety and click on the
1:30.7	collections tab. There you'll see one called on this occasion.
1:35.4	Click around, see what inspires you.
1:37.7	Anyway, on this holiday, I'm thinking about a very old debate
1:42.2	in black political thought. It goes all the way back to the early abolition
1:46.1	movement and it turns on a foundational question. Is this country
	...

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